


Their Own Kingdoms

by bucky483



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Eventual Happy Ending, Gen, If You Squint - Freeform, The Golden Age, Time Skips, Verbal Abuse, descriptions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-14
Packaged: 2018-01-14 05:43:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1255069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bucky483/pseuds/bucky483
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His first and last moments are always the same; he's never alone.<br/>Before and after Jack's death and awakening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First chapter inspired by prompt three of Blackice/Goldenfrost Week, 'Pirates, Generals and Frost Boys'

Everywhere Jack looked was black. He turned and turned, weightless and submerged, pleading for light. Every star had dimmed and died out, the darkness enveloping his body and leaving him stranded. He guessed that he was in space, floating aimlessly until he found a ship or left to die out in the open nothingness. Suddenly, he twisted in pain and turned, the force spinning him round and never letting him stop - the memories of how he got here piecing his skull, never easing or letting go, like a terrible ache that could never be soothed.

\---

Pitch turned and looked down at Jack, the smaller boy cowering in front of him and hiding his face. Pitch grasped a handful of Jack's hair and pulled him back, forcing his head up and leaving him at the General's mercy. Tears streamed down Jack's face, his chest heaving with silent sobs as he read the disgust in his master's face.

"I should never have trusted you; I should never have even chosen you. You are useless and worthless, and it's a wonder I ever saw anything in you. You are good only for a fuck, but even now, you can't get that right. I should sell you and drink away the earnings, but I doubt I'd get anything for you. Imagine the humiliation - the General's plaything, who couldn't be sold at an auction, what would they do to you?"

He released the hand in Jack's hair and pushed him forward, smirking as Jack couldn't block the fall and landed on the cold marble floor. Unsheathing his dagger from his belt, Pitch dropped his knee into the small of Jack's back and pressed down, feeling his weight press Jack further into the floor. Pitch untied his hair and used the cord to secure the younger man's hands, ignoring Jack's pleas and pulling tighter.

"They'd pull you off the stage and keep you tied like an animal, then every night they would take you to a bar and let every man have his way with you, then drag you back out to the next one. They would whip you and burn you, and leave you in lying in shit until they have use of you, or the next auction comes around. They'd kill you before the year is up because you are worthless, and marked and used."

Pitch pulls Jack's tunic and slices it off, throwing it to the ground and not caring that it's tight around Jack's neck. Jack struggles for breath, but then that doesn't matter because all he can feel is cold and hot and pain, searing pain everywhere, as Pitch pushes the dagger through the skin around Jack's ribs, in and out, veiling the dagger in skin and then back out.

Jack's eyes are closed and all he can see is white, his body burns and everything hurts. He can hear Pitch talking, his voice deep and like the finest velvet, but his words hurt more than the incisions. He's used to Pitch's moods, but they've never been this bad. Jack fears for his life - the one he was promised would be changed if he boarded the ship as a servant and gave up his powers. The binding bracelets lie heavy on his wrists and ankles, controlling his power and merging with the thoughts of his Master, and Jack is so, so scared.

\---

The memories cease as quickly as they had started, leaving Jack with an emptiness like loud static suddenly turned off. In the distance, there's a blur, and a dim grey light appears. Jack stares, minutes pass, and the light brightens from grey to blinding white. Another one appears, and Jack watches again. Hours go, maybe days, until the whole sky is the same as it once was - restored to its shining glory with stars of every colour shining in harmony. Jack floats on, still, not knowing what to do next. He glances to his wrists, expecting to see the red marks left by the cord and the golden bands of his cuffs but there's nothing. The stories of the bands come back to haunt him, the ones he was told when he was young, and when his family taunted him. The bands would never go, they said. The bands would stay as a permanent reminder of how Jack never belonged, how wrong his power was and how he should be ashamed of it.

His family. It would be wrong to say that he never loved them, but he had never forgiven them for driving him out and making him end up... here. Something turns deep inside Jack, a feeling like his skin is on fire and that he's about to explode. He gasps in shock - he hasn't felt this way since he was bound - but lets the power surge through him.

White ice, almost like sand, trickles from his fingers and swirls around him, creating his own universe of frosted stars and ice ships. Pitch was wrong. Jack is the artist of his own world, and he paints his fantasy with frost. He curls in on himself, surrounded by the comforting glow of the starlight filtering through his ice kingdom.

He sleeps with a smile, a perfect frost boy.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Nightmare King is never far from the Frost Prince.

He's drifting, floating, weightless and it feels like he's been flying for eternity. He knows that he's moving, and he knows that it's cold, it's so cold, but he doesn't care. Upwards, and the sensation makes his head feel like wool, and his eyes are burning with the light outside. He feels a pressure against his chest, but it breaks and suddenly he's free.

By the pond, the nightmares draw closer. Their leader rides the largest, following behind the braying army. He stops by the edge of the pond and disembarks, the mare slinking back near a tree keeping watch. The rest circle the pond, an impenetrable barrier.

The sensation continues down the rest of his body, his legs lift and his arms spread, floating like a falling angel. His eyes flash open, the light is too much and it's painful after such a long time. His breaths are laboured, burning the insides of his lungs, a fire that spreads to his limbs but quickly leaves. He looks towards the ground and falls back down, landing on his knees on the hardened ice. He reaches for his staff and pauses as the ice grows from his touch, the white shimmering in the moonlight. The glittering fades as the light around the pond drops, black clouds covering the light of the moon.

The figure at the side of the pond steps closer, and his voice breaks the silence of the night.

"Jack... Frost..."

Jack rises, clutching his staff and turning to face the ashen man. His voice breaks from centuries of rest.

"Wh- Who are you? Who am I?"

They stare at each other, recognition flashing through their eyes but quickly extinguishing. The figure turns to move away but something pulls him back, an unconscious pleading to never let the boy go, to never let him out of his sight. He speaks, his mind not acknowledging the words out of his mouth.

"I am the King of Nightmares, you are Jack Frost." He pauses. A glimmer of humanity shows within him. "You're safe."

He pulls the boy in towards his chest, clutching him close, and feeling the cold as Jack buries his face into the black robes. They stay like that for minutes or hours, breathing in the presence of the other and never letting go. They stand in their kingdom on the pond, surrounded by their army of nightmares, the Frost Prince and the Nightmare King.


End file.
